Siyamthanda Pongco
About Me
Siya Pongco
From Headlines to Heartfelt Narratives, reporting stories that matter!
Siya Pongco - Academic Achievement; Excellency Through Adversity
"Where Leaders Learn" Rhodes University
2018-202
Bachelor of Arts Degree
(BA)
A Journey towards Excellence: Siyamthanda Pongco's Story. A story filled with highs and lows but at the end I made it, becoming the first person to hold a degree in my family. As a First-generation student, the path was not easy riddled with new and extreme cultural experience. The covid-19 pandemic made the conditions unbearable but at the end, I managed to do what I do best and that is to excel in each and every situation that I encounter.
During my time as an under-graduate student, I worked several jobs as a writer, ghost writer, content creator and a proofreader for several companies across the country.
Achievements: First Year Anthropology second top student.
Grant Scholarship from the Department of
Anthropology (2018)
Andrew Mellon Scholarship Award: 2020
RU/Mentor
2021-201
Bachelor of Arts Honors in Historical Studies;
​
Funny enough I continued with Rhodes University despite the growing resentment towards it and I enrolled for my honors in Historical studies.
​
Dissertation Title: Running like a gazelle across the landscape of Africa: The Role of hip hop in Makhanda.
​
Research Problem
The notion of what hip hop is in the first place is to be tackled here, as well as what role it has in society.
Although hip hop is a global phenomenon, I ask in what ways local artists in Makhanda use hip hop as a
means of addressing local issues? These are some of the aspects to be engaged with in greater detail, in
relation to understanding the role of hip hop in Makhanda from the youth’s perspective. This project will
examine hip hop as a form of cultural expression that addresses historical and contemporary issues
important to the residents of Makhanda. With a particular interest in the lyrics, content and their meaning,
how it is conveyed and for what purpose, this study will address the following questions: In what sense
and how do the local hip hop artists in Makhanda engage with hip hop as a global movement? Who were
their influences or who inspired them to make hip hop music? How did their journey with music start?
What hip hop albums or hip-hop musicians do they listen to and why is that the case? How do hip hop
artists produce their music and what challenges do they come across as residents of Makhanda making hip
hop music? Who is their audience and how do they connect with their audience? How is South African
hip hop different from other forms of hip hop elsewhere in the world? What aspects of hip hop such as
MCing are fundamental in addressing the contemporary aspects of society? How are these tied up with
the contemporary reality and/or experiences of the past (history)?
Acknowledgements: I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor, Dr Helena Pohlandt-McCormick for her
supervision in this thesis (hip hop in Makhanda), honestly none of this would be possible without her
constant motivation, patience and needed critical thought into this paper. I would also like to thank
Thabiso Moneli (MaraRSA) and Lihle Smith (KB Cooper) for being participants in this project. Lastly, I
would like to thank the History Department for its support.
2022-2022
Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and Media Studies
Grocott's Mail internship:
Engaged multimedia reporting.
In 2022, life happened I saw myself changing lanes for the better.
I enrolled for a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and Media at the School of Journalism in Rhodes University. This course positioned me at the center of an AMM-based Grocott's Mail, which over time aims to become a citizen-first media organisation providing a wide range of content in multiple channels to the people who live, work and play in Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown.
GM aims to be a high-quality, informative, accurate, and credible community news organisation that serves the needs and interests of local citizens. At the same time, Grocott's provides fertile ground for the education and training of young journalists, and I happened to be one of those young journalist in an incredible group of 8 eight journalists coming from all walks of life and different professions.
During this time we produced accurate, authoritative, engaging and essential news and feature stories for a broad cross-section of Makhandans. I was able to flex a wide range of reporting muscles and write in various genres and styles. I was able to learn from my exposure to the structure, routines, practices and professional ideologies of a mainstream newsroom and the skills of the newspaper's editorial staff members. The adrenaline rush of deadlines will fired me up, and I tried to had much fun as I could as difficult as it was. Since Grocott's is both a newsroom and a classroom, I was afforded an opportunity to 'learn by doing' and critically reflect on my practice while I was in the scrum.
